This story comes soon after the Roman ambush on Alabaster's laboratory. After the Pax brothers and Alabaster defend the lab until reinforcements show up, the question hangs in the air: who revealed the location of Alabaster's lab? The Spy Master is assigned to find out or, at least, find a scapegoat.

Mercedes:

Interrogation Letdown

If you asked Mercedes, she would say that she didn't drink coffee. Her hijab always smelled of the robust aroma, one that wafted memories of her mother, of her mother's lips as they pressed Mercedes's forehead in a morning goodbye. Another day of work. Another disposable cup of coffee. Another hour to torment her brothers as Mercedes corralled them ready for school.

There were few personal items in her Camp Othrys cabin, but two of her most valuable were a rug (for when she went to "tend to the Hecate garden" in the chapel) and a small French press.

Few were awake early enough to witness her trek from Fajr prayer to the Spy Wing. There, she dumped some coffee beans and hot water into the glass container. After capping it, she would lean over the golden lid to inhale the fumes. Normally, the French press, accompanying mug, and coffee were all cleaned and away before anyone came in.

Today, she set her coffee mug in the center of the interrogation table. Steam curled up between her and Pax. She tapped her pen against her Othrys notebook. She hoped her irritation was prominent enough to cover up her worry. Pax didn't need to know she was worried about him. It would get into his head, inflate it, and he'd become the next astronaut to circumnavigate the world and her anger.

This silence was one of her and Pax's many games: invite him into the spy wing, give him no clear instructions, then ignore him for thirty minutes. At the end of his twitching, squirming, and sprawling across the table, she would ask him which three suspicious activities she had done. She would ask for the exact timestamp for each.

There weren't always three. Sometimes there were none. Sometimes there were eleven. She wanted him to question her authority, and she wanted him to use his brain, something many people found abhorrent, she knew. At least Pax could be bribed into it.

Today was not one of those exercises. However, she didn't correct his assumption that it was. She enjoyed his rapt attention and silence.

At the top of the page, as she did in every page of this notebook, she scrawled, "To me, death is nothing but happiness, and living under tyrants nothing but living in a hell" and "The end justifies the means."

Pax, as suspected, broke first. "Are you going to drink that?"

"No," she said, "It's there for the aesthetic."

As per usual, Pax couldn't tell if she was serious or sarcastic. That's exactly where she liked him. His face scrunched up in his I'm Over-Thinking expression. Mercedes loved it. Pax's unending chatter put her at ease. Ever since he went to Tartarus, his liar's tells had become obvious. If she waited long enough, he'd rat himself out.

That's why she left Pax's interview for the end. He was uncomplicated and comforting after the morning's slog.

Underneath her paper's quotes, she wrote, Suspects.

"Did you decide it wise to tell someone about Alabaster's super secret layer before its defenses were activated?" With others, she couldn't be so direct. With Pax? If he thought he was at fault, he would crumble to guilt.

Instead of falling apart, he fell onto the table. The coffee mug jerked, the brown liquid sloshing against the white, ceramic sides. She forced herself not to grab for it, to maintain her composure as cool and collected.

"Oh! Mercedes! Do I have to answer more questions about this?" He peaked at her through his fingers, his amber and black eyes glistening. "Axel and I didn't know the location until we got there! We were just told we'd be Alabaster's pack mules for the day and we'd do less of a half-assed job that the empousas would."

From the information she'd collected, this was correct. Mostly. Alabaster verified it: he hadn't told the Pax brothers anything until moving day.

However, Axel, after several rounds of questioning and clearing his throat, admitted that Alabaster had given him a rough approximation about the plans and location. This either meant Alabaster was willing to lie for one of his "meat shields" or that he had forgotten that detail. Alabaster had come to their interview with a stack of papers meticulously chronicling each time he'd mentioned the lab project over the last three months. If he had forgotten, Mercedes was a Zeus fangirl.

Mercedes had checked his records and found that Alabaster had altered them. He probably thought she wouldn't notice, but….

But Mercedes knew Alabaster. She knew all of them. It was her job. She knew that Alabaster rubbed the upper left corner of pages when he was thinking. Several pages from his records had unmarred corners. The penmanship was sloppier on those pages. (He forgot to dot an "i;" an atrocity in Alabster's book of How to be a Hard Ass.) The margins were five millimeters wider than the other pages, something he would balk as being a behemoth waste of space. He likely rewrote those pages, omitting that he told Axel anything. And he thought he adjustments were small enough that she'd overlook them.

From Pax's reaction, neither Axel nor Alabaster had told him.

"Pax Two, you're—"

"I know, I know." He sighed, slumping back into his chair. "I'm excreting salacious facial sweat onto your interrogation table."

She forced her lips not to twitch. "Sebaceous," she corrected and immediately regretted it. It brought her joy to envision adult Pax on a CSI crime scene, taking fingerprint samples and discussing how "salacious" or "lustful" the evidence was to the appall of all of his coworkers, all left to theorize about his sex life.

Mercedes was always pleasantly surprised by how carefully Pax listened to her and remembered what she said, even if he did mispronounce a word way out of their grade's reading level.

"How did you detect the Romans?" she asked. Part of her wanted to be proud of him: he was her trainee, after all and he thwarted the Romans with his snooping.

"One of them shot Sphinx." The playfulness was gone. He stared at the coffee mug's rising steam.

Mercedes set the pencil down. Her instincts said to touch his hand or give him a hug.

Impartial, she reminded herself, tracing quotes in her notebook. I'm supposed to remain impartial. Not to think about Lou Ellen crying when she went to the lab, where Sphinx used to live. Not to notice Pax shamefully avoid his best friend's gaze, horrified Lou Ellen might blame him for not saving Sphinx.

I'm as impartial as a campaign poster.

Mercedes often caught herself daydreaming about ending this war without any deaths. This was the problem with being a spymaster: you had friends on both sides of the war. Little divided you other than a sense of loyalty or cultish idealism. When most Romans defected from Camp Jupiter, they left everything and everyone. But, Mercedes was the spymaster. She needed contacts. She could never truly leave either camp.

No one had won this fight, though New Rome definitely lost. Alabaster no longer had his lab, half-a-decade's worth of priceless magical artifacts, and one of his spell books. The full death toll wasn't in on the Roman side, but they had lost a lot of people. Mercedes still needed to verify the death of their prisoner. Rumor said that he had consumed a suicide pill during Jack and Flynn's "questioning." Lucille and Mercedes normally did the interrogation. They kept the interrogation humane. Jack and Flynn didn't.

Mercedes shivered. She didn't like Flynn and Jack doing interrogations. She didn't like that Jack's mind was waning alongside Luke's.

On top of that, rumors swept the Roman legion of a new monster, this creature that had awaited the legionnaires in the Mist of the Witch's Layer. No doubt, this was a rumor started to preserve some soldier's honor, to make the Pax brothers and Alabaster seem an insurmountable foe instead of three panicked kids. From the way Pax retold the story now, he had no idea about the impression they had made.

Pax was retelling the events—enumerating the soldiers, recalling their location, their armament, their words—when he choked. "I couldn't kill her, Mercedes. Is that bad?" He puffed up his cheeks and popped them. His eyes were glassy. He had been talking about a soldier that he'd caught in a noose. "Good thing to know I'll always go for the high five. I'll never leave you hanging there." The last words broke with a hiccupped sob.

Impartial. You're impartial.

Mercedes gripped the handle of the mug. The warmth was fading from the ceramic. She lifted it. What was left of the heat and the scent of tangy undertones—she exhaled, shuddering. How would she get through this talk without hugging Pax?

He shouldn't have been at this fight. He ought to have been failing out of middle school. Really, he ought to be playing with a pegasus at Camp Half-Blood. She tried not to consider how their relationship would differ if he was.

She set the mug back on the center of the table. "No. A propensity for murder isn't a skill I value and… and the availability of a compassionate heart is a rare delicacy on this ship, despite what Luke and Kronos preach."

Pax's watery eyes went wide. He sniffled. His gaze shot around the room before resting back on her. "You don't like Luke very much, do you?"

Mercedes scowled. "That is a dangerous accusation, Pax Two. I feel for him the same way I feel for my father."

Irresponsible. Power-mad.

Luke had made her exchange her fear of one monster for another.

She did not always see eye-to-eye with Axel; she'd been to one of his cage matches and was unfond of the sensationalized violence he so easily exhumed. However, she'd never been more relieved than the day he stood between Annabeth—a bound and gagged, thirteen-year-old girl—and her would-be molester. That changed her mind about Luke forever.

This was not a conversation to have aboard the ship.

"I made you something," the words exploded from Pax. It startled Mercedes and reminded her of the time that Pax smuggled thirty containers of pudding from the cafeteria in Matthias' spandex boxers. The seams ripped, much like Pax had sputtered these words: clumsy and a little too excited to escape.

Trust Pax to easily dodge a conversation and to make you think about someone's underpants.

He withdrew something from his jacket pocket. A bulge had inhabited that it since he'd returned from Tartarus, though she'd assumed it was some kind of safety blanket. Knowing Pax, it could have been a preserved piece of skin that hadn't properly reattached to Lou Ellen's hand.

When he unfolded the brown silk, Mercedes stopped breathing. While scrunched up and crinkled, the embroidery was still beautiful: all pink and gold thread. It swirled in an elegant floral pattern along the square's edges. He made this?

"And—I—I made you a magnet pin to hold it together so you don't need to be worried about piercing the material…"

When he fumbled in his pocket again, Mercedes could feel her lip trembling. Before he looked up, she shut her jaw and dabbed her cheeks with the back of her hand. By the time he had set the items on the table, she managed her expression into a neutral one. She added Practice Facial Expressions to her list of spy exercises for his training. Vitally important if he ever had the karma of training a mini-him later down the road.

"I made a different one and ruined it when I practiced pinning it. Can you show me how to put one on right? The fabric slides and goes everywhere so I can't test it properly. You won't tell us when your birthday is, and I've been wanting to make you one for awhile, and this is one of the many things I wanted to do to make it up to you..."

His voice trailed off. Although he tried to keep his eyes sheepishly on the table, they kept flicking up to check her reaction. His information cataloguing demeanor was so obvious: wide-eyed excitement, the hint of a smile curling his lip, a slight lean forward.

Mercedes couldn't keep her hand from shaking when she reached for the fabric and magnets. He would notice the weakness; she had taught him to notice.

Both sides of the magnets were decorated, one a subtle brown that matched the hijab and another with bold gold and pink paint to match the embroidery, presumably to either blend or use as an accessory. Both were coated in a smooth gloss, likely for comfort. From what she could see, there was no trick or prank attached. Just a small, thinner section, where he must have fiddled with the fabric when talking to her.

This was one of the nicest things someone had done for her since she got to Camp Othrys.

His words echoed in her head. I wanted to make it up to you. To make up for lying and going to Tartarus.

"This is an acceptable start, Pax Two," she said, "This does not mean you've dissuaded my wrath. Continue to grovel and do not expect any items in return." If he thought she was mad, he was less likely to do something so stupid again. Mercedes almost swore. Technically, Pax was younger than her, even if by less than a year. She ought to give him something, even if it was a few pennies, for Eid al-Fitr. He better not look at that as an apology acceptance.

Pax's conniving smile broke into a goofy grin. "Gifts are not gifts if you're expecting something in return." He sounded like he was quoting a childhood mantra, adding in a little jingle.

"Then they're transaction pieces," she agreed absently. Mercedes folded the fabric and attached the magnet to assure she didn't lose it. She shoved the gift out of sight, under the table. If she looked at it for too long, he'd catch her smiling. She was furious that some part of her wanted to be somewhere private, so she could examine the embroidery in detail.

She began again, "The investigation—"

Pax whined and sank right back onto the table.

Mercedes waited until he quieted his whining. "Did you notice anything suspicious? Oh competent assistant of mine? Or were you too busy examining Alabaster's assets." She flipped her notebook to a previous page, one with two columns of names that were subdivided into tables. "This is my list of people who found out or were told. Who would you find most suspicious? Who do you think can't keep a secret and to whom would they relieve the secret's burden?"

She read it aloud from a second copy before he could point out that he couldn't read:

Involved in the planning process: Alabaster, Matthias, Lou Ellen, Hecate, Prometheus.

Involved in construction: Matthias, Alabaster, a rotation of blind-folded minions under Matthias (see back)

Knew the location: Alabaster, Matthias

Found out the location: Flynn, Jack, Luke/Kronos, Phil, Pax One, Pax Two, Mercedes, Morpheus

Two days of constant interviews had taken its toll. Tension clenched her jaw, something she didn't notice until Paxton forced her to relax. Had she had water since before Wudu? Her mouth felt dry.

Paxton began to babble, "Matthias is a great secret keeper. I still don't know how he shaved an underwear pattern into Phil's—"

"Pax Two." She meant to stop him from going off on a tangent. He took it as an accusation.

"Who, me? I'm a huge security flaw." He gave her a sly smile. "I tell you everything."

"That's amply evident." Since his return from Tartarus, he felt the need to tell her each time his color switched from green to transparent.

Pax tapped the lower part of the paper. "You forgot the centaurs. They didn't know until we got there, but they did find out."

Mercedes applauded this observation with silence. This would indicate that she had not forgotten the centaurs, but wanted to know if he would. This type of testing was so customary to Pax that he continued unhindered.

"Oh! And that sun god—the old one? Hecate's friend that can see everything under the sun, like Greek Santa. How come he gets the privilege of being Greek Santa but the sky god doesn't? If I were Zeus, I would want some those powers re-sorted

"Helios," Mercedes said. She had forgotten him. Rumors of his power (near-forgotten at the likes of Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter) were rampant in the Othrys ranks. Helios sometimes claimed his powers didn't work because he didn't have the sun chariot, but she would need to be sure. Mercedes sat very still. Would she need to interview another titan? One she did not want to see?

"You forgot about him." Pax sounded cheery.

Slowly, Mercedes nodded. "I had. This is why it's good to keep parasites around. Sometimes they keep things in their digestive systems longer than the host. Or, maybe, sometimes hosts need partners more than parasites."

Elevating Pax's position—that was a conversation for another day.

Mercedes felt sick. She wanted to accuse a friend of espionage as much as she wanted to volunteer them for an interactive presentation on degloving. No one had given her much to work with, but most didn't fit the bill.

Matthias had gone in rambling circles during his interrogation. The main thing saving him? He was too clever and resourceful. Had he wanted to capture the three boys in a building that he had designed, there would have been an attack of chloroform-coated underwear automatons.

Prometheus, likewise, would not have been so sloppy. He, as he admitted, would have gassed the boys or poisoned them.

Alabaster and Lou Ellen suspected Lamia. Apparently it would be easy for such a powerful witch to locate the magical objects transported there. Mercedes had Lamia on a different suspect list.

Luke, in his ever-increasing paranoia, thought it was Alabaster who set himself up. A charming disposition to cover up Luke's insecurities, but Mercedes knew that Alabaster had no use for subterfuge. His family made up a third of the army. If he wanted, he could have the Princess Andromeda make port in San Pedro Bay with a Welcome Legions of Rome! sign.

That left an option Pax should have pointed out but never would.

Axel.

He was close to all the right people: Luke (formerly. Mercedes blamed their falling out on a lack of shared interest. Axel didn't have the propensity for pedophilia and domestic abuse that Luke had), Alabaster, Jack and Flynn, and, of course, Pax. By being close to Pax, he was close to Mercedes and all of Mercedes' documents. He was one of the only souls aboard the ship not pledged to Kronos—incapable since he was full-blooded Maya.

There was no point in interviewing Flynn. Flynn could tell Mercedes that she was innocent; with her charmspeak, Mercedes would believe her. Any argument against Flynn would have to be cautiously researched, compiled, and brought to Lucille, Prometheus, and Luke in full secrecy.

For that matter, Lucille could be a good option, but there seemed no reason: she was happily courting Ethel and had taken Charlie on as her own daughter. She didn't feel right… Although, Mercedes guessed Silena Beauregard wouldn't feel right as a spy for Camp Half-Blood, and Silena had been cheating on Beckendorf and getting campers killed for at least two years now. Having children of Aphrodite around was always dicey. Thank god the Roman editions weren't as powerful.

Although it was unwise to be too close to anyone with Mercedes' job, she wouldn't want to accuse Lucille without hard evidence. Lucille made sure no one bothered Mercedes about her hijab, just as Mercedes assured that no one bothered Lucille about her relationships with women.

Mercedes watched Pax's gaze flicker over the symbols on the paper, pretending to read them.

She didn't think Pax would accuse his half-brother or his surrogate mother, even if those were the most logical conclusions.

Pax set the paper down. His rounded cheeks puffed into a frown. Insecurity wrinkled the edges of his eyes as they gazed intently into hers.

Mercedes took in a deep breath. Would he?

"Mercedes," he said, sounding grave, "I'm thinking about having my first kiss—well, my real first kiss."

"Ya Allah, save us from the sins and hellfire," Mercedes mumbled, exhaling. The tension eased out of her muscles as she restrained a laugh.

"I'm thinking about Alabaster, though Lou Ellen says he might not be ready yet. But, that's like saying she shouldn't try to make a move on my brother during our victory dance party, and she should totally make a move on my brother."

As he spoke, Mercedes collected the list of suspicious names, tucked it into her flip notebook, and closed it. She rose, took her cup of cold coffee, and dumped it down a sink along one wall. As the brown liquid splattered against the white porcelain, she sent a mental prayer of safety for her mother, brothers, and friends back at home.

No one seemed to realize she eavesdropped on her comrades as much as she spied on her enemies. If there was one thing she knew, Alabaster was not ready for intimacy, with anyone, let alone with Pax. And Axel would certainly have a heart attack warding off Lou Ellen, who, she knew for a fact, Axel thought was too young for him.

"I want it to be perfect. Jack agrees and he's been brainstorming with me. He said he doesn't remember his first kiss and that makes him really sad and Flynn won't tell me about hers. But, it has to have great atmosphere—music! And maybe outdoors—maybe with a garden—but what if something goes wrong? I've been practicing on my hand—You know, to make sure I'm not the worst while keeping the purity of the first kiss—and I've been asking for advice all around, from Lucille and Prometheus won't tell me anything, he just laughs in his 'I'm a titan who can predict the future' kind of way. And what if it isn't perfect?! Like, I want it to make Alabaster happy and make me happy and be a good story for future Pax generations like Jack wishes he had a good story for me!" Pax rose to his feet to follow her around the room.

From the frantic cadence of his tone, she knew, with relief, they were done for the day. The part of Pax's brain capable of none-meandering thoughts had a clear timer and that alarm had gone off.

She walked back to the table, gathering her notebook and new hijab. The fabric felt so soft when she tucked both against her chest. "Too many expectations lead to inevitable disappointment. What if you're a bad kisser?"

"What if I'm a bad kisser?" Pax's eyes widened. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them.

"Planning isn't in your nature. What if nothing goes according to plan?" She ushered her stunned friend towards the exit of the Spy Barracks.

Pax stumbled alongside her, eyes clearly visualizing the worst case scenario. "You're right! What if nothing goes according to plan?!"

"What if you make a big fuss over something that won't matter and you worry yourself needlessly?"

"What if I—hey!" Pax's features scrunched up into a pout. He folded his arms.

Mercedes sighed. Like Alabaster, she didn't have time for experience in this field and couldn't offer much advice. As someone who ran spy operations, and someone with a cute, unpredictable parasite pouting in front of her, she knew things tended to fall apart in correlation with how hard you tried to keep them together. "You can't control if something goes wrong, Ajax, and you can't control how Alabaster will react. If things go wrong, then you'll find someone else later, whose lip sensitivity is closer to that of your palm." She pointed to his right hand, the one she assumed he'd been practicing on.

"But what if—"

Pax went quiet.

Mercedes had, much to her own surprise and skipped heartbeat, leaned forward. His nose was cold when it pressed against hers; his lips, warm. There was a faint hint of something citrusy, like he had drunk orange juice for breakfast. Fortunately, no reek of bacon.

Several jittery questions flashed through her brain: What constitutes as a "real" kiss? Was I supposed to close my eyes? It's awkward if I keep them open, right? How long am I supposed to do this for?

The insecurity shook her nerves—it shouldn't have. This was Pax. And they were just friends. Just two friends who spent 90% of their time together.

His eyes had gone wide with shock. His gasp sucked air from her before he gently exhaled.

Four seconds was plenty, plenty enough to make her face feel hot. Mercedes saw movement out of her peripheral—either he was about to push her away or pull her close. She didn't wait to find out. She withdrew, absently fussing with her notebook and hijab like she'd finished another closing procedure. Both items had almost slipped from her grasp.

Pax looked lost. His mouth moved a few times, before remembering how to form words, "Why did you do that?" The question was quiet and uncertain. Not angry. From his hesitant tension, she got the feeling there was more he wanted to ask, but was scared.

Mercedes quirked her lips into a smirk. "Because, no one will believe you when you tell the story later."

His mouth moved a few times more times; Mercedes resisted the urge to remind him that they were no longer kissing.

In the most delayed startle she'd seen, he jumped. "But—wha—it—Mercedes!" he cried in protest. Mercedes ushered him outside the spy barrack's door while he was still floundering for words. "I—but—" He huffed. "I wanted to share my first kiss with someone who hadn't had theirs!"

Mercedes paused in the doorway, widening her grin. "You just did." And, she shut the door on his face, locking it. Mercedes pressed against the wall, flipped out her dulled mirror, and tilted it to watch him through the window.

Pax paced back and forth across the entranceway, paused, raised a hand to open the door again, threw his hands up, and dropped them. After six seconds of standing there, he touched his lips and blushed. The blush remained as he walked, unsteadily, away from the Spy Barracks.

He'd be pouty with her for another week. To keep any ideas out of his head, she'd have to pretend she didn't know why. She unfolded the hijab to admire the embroidery. This must have taken Pax weeks to make. She pressed the silk against her face, enjoying the smooth coolness. The slickness would be a pain—she'd have to wear an undercap to keep it in place.

She thought about how hard her mother would slap her if she ever found out Mercedes had kissed a boy. At home, she would have been forbidden to see Pax or, at least, be forbidden to spend time with him without a chaperon—no, it would be fully forbidden. Pax was raised Catholic. There was no potential for—

The elation in her chest crushed when she glanced down at her notebook. This was a botched job. There was no time for any daydreaming or—had she been flirting? Luke expected a report from her by the end of the day, and she needed to give him a name in that report. If she didn't—

Mercedes tried not to think about the hunger in Luke when he stared at Annabeth, the way he'd smacked Phil across the room, the times she'd stumbled into Jack healing his own battered face with a hushed, "Don't tell Flynn or the boys. They won't understand that Luke has bad days the same way that I get confused." The way Kronos' darkness seemed to spread through the underlings like a contagion, through how Jack and Flynn had future plans to torture-heal-torture any new captives (for Jack, as some displaced revenge against Thalia for failing his friend; for Flynn, for fun) and the increased violence and spectacle of Axel's now labyrinthine cage fights.

And here she was, holding a gift against her face like she could have a Catholic Maya boy as a sweetheart even if she were at home. People died and were seriously injured because of her lack of oversight—how dare she. What else had she clouded from her vision?

Pax is a good suspect. He has access to all your files. But, he had no reason to alert Axel and Alabaster to the ambush. Breath choked in Mercedes' throat. And she couldn't do that—she couldn't do that to Pax or herself.

She knew this—suspecting friends—came with the job. But, that had been a distant thought when she—terrified and desperate for some good to come out of the inevitable slaughter of her Cohort—realized she would make the perfect spy for Camp Othrys. Before she knew the ease of Lucille's smile, how special Pax could make her feel, how horrifying Flynn was.

Pain spread along her forearm. She dug her nails in. Underneath were the lines of her Roman tattoo, of Mercury's symbol and her bars of service. The marks didn't vanish when she pledged her soul to Kronos, when she forsook any chance of joining her real family after death. Was there a chance Allah would understand? To what extent could you step into the dark to stop tyrants and false idols before you were consumed?

When she inhaled sharply, she could almost taste the scent of her centurion's perfume, a smell as comforting as her mother's brewing coffee. She thought about that home—Rome. About her real home in Spain. About her real name, the one she had to abandon, and the one she took upon joining the legion, now reserved for her contacts in New Rome. She could never keep a name. If she did, and something went wrong, if she couldn't do her job right, legionnaires or titans might find her real family and kill them.

Like not finding a satisfying suspect for this report.

Life seemed complicated when she lived in Granada, helping to raise her brothers while her mother worked. It seemed more complicated when she had to abandon them to keep the monsters away. Tiny Mercedes could have never predicted life would get worse.

Allah does not burden a soul beyond what it can bear.

But, she didn't feel that right now. She'd been so careful not to feel anything. And then Pax gave her this stupid hijab and she was dumb enough to kiss him.

Her breath felt tight; legs, weak. She had to lean against the wall for support. How many homes can you have before none of them are a "home?" How many identities can you wear before all of them lose meaning? How many times could you pledge a soul before it shatters?

There were no answers to these questions, and Mercedes still had to pick from one of her friends to throw to Luke as a scapegoat and sacrifice.

Mercedes slid to the floor, pressed her face completely into the hijab and sobbed.

Authors note:

Thank you for reading! I'm sorry for the hiatus-I aim to get back to a bimonthly schedule. Every time I edited this piece, it just didn't feel right/good enough. I hope you enjoyed anyway! I also hope all of you are well and being gentle with yourselves! Stay tuned for one of my first (sorta?) fluff pieces, Alabaster's Delicate Dance of Chance. (Hopefully available in October.)